Antitrust
cases against large companies in the tech world are nothing new.
Microsoft is certainly no stranger to antitrust allegations and the
firm has been found guilty of violations on several occasions in the
past. The most recent antitrust charges in Europe against Microsoft
had to do with the bundling of IE with Windows. The charges
were ultimately dropped after Microsoft and the EU agreed to a
ballot box offering users a choice of several web browsers. Testing
of the browser ballot box was set to start
this week in some European nations.

This time around,
Google has found itself at the center of new allegations
of antitrust activities. The European Commission has revealed
that it is in the early stages of an antitrust investigation into
Google. The EC said, "The Commission can confirm that it has
received three complaints against Google which it is examining."

The
EC didn’t specify what companies had filed the complaints, but
Google announced the names of the firms in a blog post reports PC
World.
The three firms are Foundem (a UK price comparison engine),
ejustice.fr (a French legal search site), and Ciao (a German search
site). Google points the finger at Microsoft for most of the charges
though. According to Google, Microsoft recently purchased Ciao and
Foundem is a member of iComp, a trade group funded mostly by
Microsoft.

Google legal counsel Julia Holtz said, "Microsoft
is our competitor and that explains many actions." She also
said, "We are hopeful we can convince the Commission not to
pursue a case. I am confident they will conclude there is nothing to
it."

The core of the EC inquiry -- which the commission
points out is not an official investigation at this time -- centers
around Google's search algorithms. Foundem alleges that Google
blacklisted its site by changing its search results and pushing
Foundem results further down the rankings. Holtz maintains that
Google uses neither blacklists nor whitelists for any
sites.

The Wall
Street Journal reports
that the EC asked Google to “comment on the allegations"
earlier this month and reports that the probe
centers on search advertising rather than Google's search
algorithms as PC
World claims.

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You know, it's not that hard to think or look up for info before you comment on a subject...Greece isn't the only country in the EU that's in a bad financial position. Larger countries such as Spain and Italy are dealing with thw same problems, so does Portugal...I don't think it's "fair" to put the blame solely on Greece...

Most of the times i enjoy the comments i see here in AT, i believe some guys here would make great comedians, seriously...But i found this one a bit offensive, if i may say, since i'm Greek...Anyway, no hard feelings, i know there was no pun intended...:)

Greece brought a lot of this upon themselves deficit spending their EU currency like it is going out of style. The Greeks appear to handle their own economy about as well as they handle cruise ships and ferry boats...